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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

COVID19

How Will the Black Swan of COVID-19 Impact Data Used in AI-Based Flavor Prediction?

In order to build an effective artificial intelligence (AI) platform, you need good data. Data feeds the algorithms that go into the AI; the better your data the better your AI system will function.

In the food tech world, there are a number of startups like Spoonshot, Analytical Flavor Systems and Tastewise have built intricate AI platforms that use tons of different data to help big CPG companies identify and predict culinary and flavor trends.

But what happens when a big catastrophic black swan event occurs like, oh, I don’t know, a global pandemic, which changes the eating and buying patterns of almost everyone on the planet all at once?

For instance. In February, it was easy to buy flour and yeast at your local grocery store. Fast forward to March and suddenly store shelves were empty and you had to resort to making your own yeast. Around that same time, instead of pictures of fancy restaurant meals, social media accounts were flooded with pictures of homemade bread.

Food predicting AI systems uses data points like restaurant menus, social media mentions and consumer purchasing patterns to determine future trends. But everyone didn’t start making sourdough bread at home because it was suddenly fashionable. It was because everyone was stuck inside.

How then, will AI systems handle this shock to the data system? Sheltering in place won’t last forever (knocks on wood), and who knows how long people will actually make their own bread. The popularity of it now is an aberration, does this mean that the data surrounding it is no good? Is bread making today indicative of anything other being bored or does it foretell a bigger trend?

To get a better sense I reached out to both SpoonShot and Analytical Flavor Systems to see how they are incorporating this massive disruption to our eating patterns into their own prediction process — and got two very different answers.

SpoonShot’s AI uses more than 3,000 sources across 22 data sets including menu, social and pattern data. Kishan Vasani, Co-Founder & CEO of SpoonShot, didn’t seem to think that COVID-19-induced eating changes would impact his company’s predictive capabilities at all. “Algorithms shouldn’t be overly sensitive to black swan data,” he said, “If you think about it, AI essentially means having enough relevant and appropriate data to process and predict.”

In other words, if your AI system is worth its salt, you should be able to weather big changes like this. “Everything goes back to the data and data sources,” Vasani said, “Menu data is significantly slowed down, but that’s compensated for with cooking platforms.”

On the other hand Jason Cohen, Founder and CEO of Analytical Flavor Systems, thinks the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns are a big deal. “Companies will say, ‘no no no, we can make predictions,'” Cohen said, “I do not believe that. This is the most rapid and intense change to consumer behavior since World War II.”

Cohen believes that with quarantines already in place for more than 60 days, new habits will definitely have formed. People will still be baking bread at home. What’s important is to meet this new data where it lives, literally.

Up until the pandemic, Analytical Flavor Systems used a 50 person panel of tasters as part of its data collection. This panel would come into the office to try various on-market foods. But since lockdown, the company has moved entirely to at-home testing. “In addition to CPG products, we are asking them to taste profile their homemade bread and soups,” Cohen said, “The point is we need to see those flavors, aromas and textures they are exposing themselves to.”

Cohen doesn’t think that past data is invalidated, but rather that data needs to be collected before during and after this crisis. Something which I think Vasani would agree with.

The thing about predictions now is that we won’t know if they were accurate for a long time. SpoonShot looks out 18 months and is even considering pushing that out to two years.

Hopefully we’ll be able to eat bread at a restaurant again by then.

Soylent Relaunches in Canada as Meal-in-a-Bottle Sales Fuel Up

Starting today, Soylent’s meal-in-a-bottle drinks and powder will again be available for delivery to Canadian consumers, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

This comes after the more than two-year hiatus in Soylent sales in the Great White North. In the fall of 2017, Soylent had to halt Canadian distribution of its products after, as it wrote in the press release, there were “challenges with certain Canadian government filings.” Chiefly, it did not meet Canadian food inspectors’ standards of what constitutes a meal replacement.

Almost three years later Soylent has finally caught up on the proper regulatory paperwork and is returning north of the border. The company will relaunch in Canada with a more limited lineup, including three beverage flavors and two powders flavors. The product will initially be available only online through Soylent’s website.

Now is an ideal time for Soylent to expand its sales footprint. The aforementioned press release noted that the company’s return to Canada “comes at a time when many people are looking for shelf-stable, nutritious products that can be delivered directly to their homes.” In short, a pandemic — when people are panic shopping and anxious about having enough food that won’t go bad quickly — is actually kind of a perfect situation for meal replacement drinks like Soylent.

Jamie Sullivan, Director of Sustainability and Corporate Affairs for Soylent, told me over email that the company had seen “ebbs and flows” with their online sales that “seem to be aligned with the demand and worry about access to meals, groceries, and nutrition during this time.” She also noted that most of the company’s sales right now are coming from D2C channels — unsurprising, considering the rise in food delivery and grocery e-commerce as people shelter in place.

Soylent isn’t the only meal-replacement drink that’s navigating shifts in demand during the pandemic. James McMaster, the CEO of Huel, another complete nutrition company, told me that sales of their meal beverage have been “unprecedented.” He pointed out that Huel’s long shelf life (12 months), D2C sales channel, and low price point ($1.90 a meal) are all contributing to its popularity as we enter a time where people want to stay in more, shop less, and, with a recession looming, save money.

Meal replacement drinks could do more than just serve as back-up consumer nutrition for the pandemic. Sullivan also told me that Soylent is making donations to food banks. Thus far Soylent has donated more than 500,000 Soylent meals.

Normally I’d shy away from including blatant PR-y announcements like this in a piece. However, food banks are currently in desperate need of nutritious food, and meal replacements could actually be a viable solution to help pad nutrition gaps in donations. As well as in your pantry.

COVID-19 Summit: Restaurant Owners Need to Act on the Paycheck Protection Program Now

Struggling restaurant operators in this country have a lot to worry about right now. And not to add one more thing to that list, but if you are a struggling restaurant owner, you need to stop what you’re doing and go learn about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that was put into place as part of the federal response to the chaos the COVID-19 pandemic is causing.

Don’t believe me? Then listen to Ryan Palmer, a lawyer and partner at Lathrop GPM who specializes in restaurant law. He joined us as a featured speaker during our COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit today and had a lot of great advice for restaurant owners trying to weather this storm.

Paramount among that advice was the need to learn about the PPP, a loan program devised to help small businesses keep workers employed. These are loans that are made by your lender (not the Small Business Administration), but you need to act quickly to get one. There’s $349 billion dollars for relief in there but when it’s gone, it’s gone. So if you are looking for federal relief you need to get your application in now.

In addition to being fast, restaurant owners need to be smart. As Palmer explained, the whole situation is very fluid and changing by the day. It would behoove people to call up their lawyer to help them navigate all of the ins and out of the program.

You can also use your lawyer to help you negotiate new terms in contracts that pre-corona were probably off the table. Palmer said a good place to start would be with your landlord because, as he said, “A landlord wants tenants in its spaces and a tenant wants to be in the space.” The landlord may want to keep that space occupied instead of having the space go dark or need to be re-rented and therefore be more flexible in terms of when rent is paid, etc. If you’re a franchise, Palmer said you can talk with your franchisor about continuing fees and advertising fees.

Another suggestion from Palmer, which is actually pretty evergreen, is to check your insurance. As restaurants are pivoting to delivery or even curbside pickup, make sure that your business and employees are properly covered. As a good follow up, you should also check your local ordinances and lease to see what types of conveniences (drive-up window, curbside drop off, etc.) that you can actually provide for your customers.

The whole chat was actually very illuminating and filled with solid, boots-on-the-ground type advice; you should watch the whole thing (select Legal Considerations & Strategies for Restaurant Operators During COVID-19 from the drop down menu in the upper right of the embedded player below). We may not know what the long-term effects of COVID-19 will be on the restaurant industry, but learning about the PPP is something every restaurant owner should be doing right now.

You can watch the full session with Ryan Palmer below or check it out on Crowdcast.

The Spoon's COVID-19 Summit: Ryan Palmer on Financial Relief For Restaurants During COVID-19 Crisis

Food Tech Show: The ‘Looking for Bright Spots in a Dark Time’ Episode

Needless to say, when you’re talking and writing about coronavirus all the time, you can get a little down.

So on this week’s podcast, we thought we’d focus on some bright spots, highlighting stories of people and companies who are innovating to help others or are just well-positioned to succeed in an otherwise down time.

Finally, a reminder we’re hosting a virtual COVID-19 strategy summit for food and restaurant people on Monday and we’ll be talking to smart people with good ideas for dealing the crisis.

As always, you can listen to the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download it direct to your device or just click play below.

COVID is Migrating All My Food and Beverage Shopping to Online Mail Order Boxes

We’re all waiting to see what permanent changes the COVID-19 pandemic will bring about in our daily lives (handshakes, hugs, etc.). At least in the Albrecht house, after the worst of it subsides, regular, in-person trips to the grocery store may be a thing of the past.

Even before our home state of Washington was given a shelter-in-place order, we were pretty hardcore about our social distancing. I tried various online grocery shopping methods (to varying degrees of success), and have only been to the supermarket once because we ran out of milk (and even that trip out was filled with gloves and hand sanitizer).

Given that we don’t know how long this social distancing will last, this past week I explored all the online ways I could find to replace old habits. With the goal of maximizing social distancing and minimizing human contact, here’s what I signed up for.

  • CrowdCow for proteins. I also looked at ButcherBox, but it wouldn’t ship until the end of April. CrowdCow will deliver this weekend. (Sidenote: I can’t wait till someone creates an alternative protein box subscription so I can subscribe to Beyond and Impossible plant-based meat.)
  • Full Circle for fruit and veggies. I haven’t received a box yet, so I’m concerned about what will actually be in there (i.e., month after month of eggplant), but it has the bonus of also supporting farmers.
  • Smith Brothers for milk, egg, yogurt and other staples.
  • Amazon Subscribe and Save for my morning tea, and I’m considering one of the coffee subscriptions Catherine wrote about to keep whole beans coming to the house (and maybe some sort of booze club, depending on how long we’re all cooped up).
  • And I’ll still use Walmart online for curbside pickup of last minute items or cleaning supplies.

What’s missing from this list is meal kits, which are also seeing a bit of COVID-induced resurgence. I dabbled in meal kits a bunch of years back when Blue Apron was first coming on the scene. I didn’t like all the work it took then and I’m not thrilled about the prospect now, so I’m skipping those altogether.

All these mail order boxes aren’t just about replacing trips to the grocery store. They also help maintain a pipeline of food in the house. Knowing that each week/month a box will arrive with what we need gives me one less thing to worry about in a world filled with plenty of other things to worry about. (Granted, society could break down altogether, but I can cross that bridge when I get to it.)

Ordering food online by subscription isn’t new or rocket science, and perhaps I’m overreacting to any potential dangers lurking at the supermarket. But some of these services are ones I’ve been eyeing for awhile; the coronavirus just nudged me into action. For instance, we still eat meat, and it will feel better to patronize smaller farms via CrowdCow. Same for the fruits and veggies.

Will my subscriptions to these boxes stick around once the outbreak abates? Who knows! At that point I’ll just be thankful there’s a world to emerge out into.

Want to Help Restaurants Survive? The National Restaurant Association Suggests Just “Buy a Meal”

With restaurants struggling as they’re forced to adjust to the new restrictions in place to fight COVID-19, you, like us, are probably wondering “How can I help?”

There are almost too many options about where to put your dollars to aid struggling foodservice locations. You can buy gift cards, virtually tip your bartender, or donate to relief funds. For places that are still open, you can also order takeout or delivery, either from the restaurant themselves or through a third-party site like DoorDash or Grubhub.

So where’s the best place to put your dollars? That’s the question I posed over the phone this week to Vanessa Sink, Media Relations Director of the National Restaurant Association. According to Sink, the answer is simple: buy a meal.

“Restaurants still want to cook for us,” Sink said. “They’re safe, and they’re there to make sure that we’re getting good food and enjoying it.” If you can, order pick-up or for delivery directly through the restaurant. That way, they don’t have to pay super-high fees to third-party delivery services, which, despite their claims, are not cutting restaurants much slack right now.

Restaurants are trying desperately to get the word out about the importance of ordering to-go meals, while we’re still permitted to do so. Foodservice establishments have actually banded together to launch a new initiative called The Great American Takeout (#TheGreatAmericanTakeout on Twitter) to motivate people to order more to-go meals from their local restaurants. It’s launching today.

Maybe you don’t feel comfortable ordering takeout or delivery from restaurants at this time. And that’s okay. “We support whatever people can do,” Sink said. You can still donate to relief funds for restaurant workers and bartenders — there’s a comprehensive list right here. You can follow the New Yorker’s Helen Rosner’s advice and call your elected officials to demand government relief for restaurants and foodservice workers. If your favorite restaurants are selling gift cards, you can buy one for when this all blows over (but be aware there’s always a risk that the restaurant won’t return to full service).

Or you can see how chefs are getting creative in your area. In Seattle Eric Rivera is offering the sale of pantry items made in his restaurant as well as pick-up meals. Celebrity chef Sean Brock is doing live, private cooking classes. Famed restauranteur Hugh Acheson is offering contracts to come and cook at your house when the COVID-19 quarantine period is over.

Finally, no matter what you do, tip well. Hopefully together we can help more restaurants come out the other side.

Instacart to Add 300,000 Shoppers

Instacart is bulking up. The company announced today that it is responding to the surge in demand for its grocery delivery services by adding 300,000 shoppers to its platform over the next three months.

Instacart shoppers are the workers the company uses to go into stores, pick out the items customers order and deliver them. In a corporate blog post, Instacart Founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta wrote:

Today, we have more shoppers on the Instacart platform than ever before. Given the continued customer demand we expect over the coming months, we’ll be bringing on an additional 300,000 full-service shoppers to support cities nationwide. As more people look for immediate, flexible earnings opportunities during this time, we hope that Instacart can be an additional source of income for those looking to earn while also delivering for the communities in which they live.

Instacart operates in more than 5,500 cities. In a press release announcing the news, Instacart said that in the past few weeks, it has seen order volume grow by more than 150 percent year-over-year, with average customer basket size also increasing by 15 percent. The additional 300,000 full-service shoppers will more than double the size of its shopper workforce.

That the company is seeing such a spike in demand is not surprising. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people into stocking up for what could be a long haul indoors. Many people adopting social distancing find it easier to have food delivered rather than interact with the (potentially contagious) general public at the grocery store.

I count myself among that surge in Instacart traffic even though it’s not available where I live. Instead I used it to order food for my elderly parents who are in a high-risk population and still stubborn about going to the grocery store in person.

Anyone who has tried to order groceries online recently has assuredly run into lengthy delays (I ordered from Safeway a week and half ago and it arrives tomorrow)(hopefully) and out-of-stock error messages. Instacart is among a number of companies looking to hire a lot of people immediately. Amazon wants to bring on 100,000 people for its delivery operations, Kroger is hiring 10,000 across the country, and Walmart plans to hire 150,000 new workers.

With COVID-19 decimating the restaurant industry and estimates that five to seven million service and kitchen jobs could be lost, any job could be a lifeline for those in need until this pandemic passes.

Just remember that all these Instacart, Amazon, Kroger and Walmart workers are on the front lines, putting themselves at risk going into stores and to your homes. So be kind and tip them generously.

Territory Foods Lets Restaurants Package Pre-Made Meals for Subscription Delivery

A byproduct of this global pandemic is that restaurants are being forced to try new models to stay in business as people are increasingly told to shelter in place and social distance.

We’ve seen dine-in restaurants pivot to delivery and curbside pickup. But Territory Foods this week launched a new initiative to give restaurants another possible sales channel in the form of weekly subscriptions.

Territory Foods may sound familiar to Spoon readers. They took over serving Kettlebell Kitchen’s customers after Kettlebell abruptly shut down last year. Territory provides an operations and logistics platform for restaurants and chefs to manage the ordering and delivery of pre-packed, ready-made meals.

Basically, instead of a customer ordering one meal one evening from a restaurant, they could order a number of meals in advance and have them packed up, kept cold and delivered all at once. Restaurants just prepare the meals and hand them off to Territory, which handles all the ordering and distribution.

“Through our platform, folks can order meals direct to their home,” Stefan Niemczyk, Head of Culinary for Territory Foods told me by phone this week.

This type of subscription approach offers restaurants a few benefits, according to Niemczyk. First, obviously, it’s another sales channel for restaurants in these troubled times where every dollar counts. Plus, that revenue is frontloaded and gives restaurants an accurate sense of how much food they need to prepare. Second, Territory can expand the geographic footprint of a restaurant, so a restaurant in LA can serve people in San Diego.

Additionally, Territory has a full culinary team on staff. They can help restaurants put together menus based on data from existing customers, cater to specific diets, and also figure out how to design and prepare each meal for optimal travel.

Right now, Territory is available in the Bay Area and all of Southern California, as well as Washington DC, Baltimore, Virginia, parts of New York City including Manhattan, parts of New Jersey, and Dallas and Houston, TX. Niemczyk wouldn’t get specific about pricing, saying only that it’s a revenue share on a per meal basis that changes depending on the meal concept.

While this pandemic is pushing restaurant owners into new avenues of revenue, the biggest barrier to trying something like Territory might be the restaurant business itself. Faced with a revamping of their businesses, can restaurants stay alive long enough to even try something like Territory?

At least Territory seems to be giving restaurants one more way to get a fighting chance.

COVID-19 Got Shoppers to Order Groceries Online, but Will They Keep Coming Back?

As COVID-19 has forced shoppers indoors, the growth curve of online grocery has suddenly accelerated, with downloads of popular grocery apps increasing by as much as 2000%. Shoppers who were previously hesitant to buy groceries online have found themselves now doing so out of necessity. It’s a bittersweet victory for online grocers who have long struggled to gain real traction.

But as the old adage says, “this too, shall pass.” The current crisis will subside, and when it does, it’s anybody’s prediction if grocery shoppers will retain their newfound affection for buying foodstuffs online. I believe that the outcome of that question will be determined by the kind of customer experience that online grocers deliver to shoppers now.

Here are three levels of effort that online grocers might want to focus on to make sure that experience will keep bringing shoppers back after the crisis has passed.

1. A functional platform and robust delivery capability is crucial

Online grocers with holes in their game need to scramble. They had better eliminate technical glitches, ensure that their back-end can support purchases in large volume, secure agreements with suppliers for gluts in demand, and validate that their pickup and delivery services are built to flexibly scale.

Even some very established players have seen troubles during this spike of new traffic. British online grocers like Ocado and others came face-to-face with this problem recently, as sites and apps repeatedly crashed under the weight of new users. Some ultimately had to turn new customers away, or create “virtual queues” just to use the service. Morrisons quickly updated its payment terms to make sure that deliveries from small suppliers would not be stymied by cash flow problems.

American retailers have rather famously faced logistics problems. Instacart, Amazon and others have been unable to meet their typical delivery commitments while Walmart, Target, and Amazon are all facing severe inventory problems on high-demand items.

While it’s understood that these are unusual times, online grocers should take a lesson and develop contingency plans for higher traffic. It’s a good time to take a hard look at both the technology and the support systems that you will need to service your new customers.

2. Make sure your shopping experience is easy 

Adoption of online grocery shopping to date has largely been driven by tech-savvy millennials. Provided that your online grocery shopping website and app have a half-decent user interface, these young shoppers will natively understand how to navigate them. But that may not be so true of those who have hopped on the bandwagon recently. Either way, ease and enjoyment of the online shopping experience can make or break loyalty to your online platform.

If your online shopping experience is not already as easy and smooth as it could be, now’s the time to change that. Products must be easy to find through search functions and intuitive shopping categories. Consider carefully how you are organizing product by category and sub-category, by brand, price, and even by lifestyle or dietary choices. Think about how to best present holiday and promotion items. If shoppers feel that it is difficult to find what they want, they’ll soon switch back to what they know.

Don’t neglect sign-up, check-out, and re-order, either. Think of online grocery as a means to “always have the customer in the store.” You can make shopping easier by proposing automatic delivery of common staples each shopper routinely purchases. The more seamless these routine functions are, the more customers will appreciate the convenience of shopping online.  

3. Make online shopping about personalization, imagination and discovery  

So what about online grocers who already have a functional platform that makes it easy for shoppers to get what they need? If you are one of these grocers, you are positioned to create not just a functional shopping experience, but an extraordinary one. Online grocery should not be just “a store on a website.” By making your online platform emulate something that it is not, you’ll miss out on making it something much better.

That something should include smart, personalized recommendations to customers. When a shopper puts fresh chicken breasts, bouillon cubes, and vegetables in their cart, you could recommend egg noodles for the chicken noodle soup they are making, but you could also suggest freshly squeezed orange juice or hot tea, honey, and ginger for whoever is nursing a cold. That vegan shopper who is always buying garbanzo beans and tahini will probably appreciate you suggesting the imported middle-eastern spices that just came in. And for that customer you know is looking to shed a few pounds, you could prioritize delicious, healthy foods that help him or her choose wisely. 

Henry Michaelson | Co-Founder, President & CTO at Halla 
While studying computer science at UC Berkeley, Henry co-founded Halla, a taste intelligence company that enables retailers to predict the personal preferences of their shoppers, all in real time. He is responsible for constantly improving Halla’s machine learning algorithm and for internal leadership, especially with respect to technology. Henry’s previous projects include machine learning based classification of supernovae in the UC Berkeley Astrophysics department, a speaking role in the Warner Brothers blockbuster comedy Project X, a three year stint as lead guitarist for Joe Banks, and a patented algorithm that has distributed over $7M in awards to mobile gamers.

According to Yelp and Foursquare Data, Pizza, Fast Food, and CSAs are Up in Wake of Coronavirus

There’s a lot of news swirling around there about how COVID-19 is hurting local businesses, and for restaurants, things are looking especially grim. But what does the data actually say? Yelp and Foursquare recently released some analysis of internal data that gives insight into how our relationship with restaurants, dining, and more is shifting dramatically during this very abnormal time.

Yelp notes that many of the changes in restaurant and food business are a direct result of “the home’s rising status as the place to eat.” Considering we’re supposed to be social distancing — and a growing number of restaurants are forced to close their doors to diners, anyway — that’s not exactly surprising.

The numbers are pretty bleak for restaurants. Yelp reports that U.S. consumer interest in restaurants has fallen by about 54 percent. They only looked at data from the data range of March 8 to 18, so the number has probably increased as more and more cities and states restrict dine-in capabilities for restaurants. Simultaneously, Yelp notes that delivery and take-out are “2X more popular than usual.”

What sort of food is popular during the corona-pocalypse? Basically, anything that is suited for delivery and pickup. That means dim sum restaurants, French restaurants, and other spots geared towards more leisurely meals eaten in the restaurant dining room are suffering. Sales from food trucks and breweries are also down.

The news isn’t bad for all restaurants, though — some are actually thriving in the new normal of COVID-19. Sales from pizzerias and fast food restaurants are up 44 percent and 64 percent, respectively. Unsurprisingly, Yelp says that sales of beer, wine, and spirits are up 63 percent. And in your daily dose of heart-warming news, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), or deliveries of farm produce, are up a whopping 405 percent.

Foursquare released its own data examining the change in foodservice foot traffic from February 19 to March 13. Like Yelp, it showed that QSRs are actually experiencing an uptick in traffic, though it cited a much smaller rise of 11 percent. Foursquare noted that QSR visits are down in areas with higher infection rates, like Washington state, but up in areas of the country with lower alert levels.

Seems like people still love their chicken sandwiches. [Photo: Foursquare]

Yelp points out that these shifts haven’t affected all of the U.S. in the same way. The impact is most significant near the coasts and more muted in the Midwest and Southeast, despite the fact that many cities and states have mandated dine-in closures in those areas. However, Yelp notes that every state reflects, at least to some degree, “the new reality of the coronavirus economy — that is, until it changes quickly again.”

To help restaurants struggling with this new reality, Yelp announced today that it would contribute $25 million to support local restaurants in the form of waived advertising fees and even free advertising.

That’s nice and all, but all the advertising in the world might not be enough to keep restaurants afloat. Some spots don’t have enough saved to keep paying rent/staff with significant diminished income. Others aren’t able to effectively pivot to a delivery- or pickup-only menu.

I don’t want to end this post on a glum note, but faced with cold, hard numbers, it can be hard not to feel scared for the future of local restaurants. So do what you can to support — go buy a gift card, tip a bartender virtually, or just place a pick-up order to support your favorite neighborhood spot. Maybe together we can help change some of these numbers.

With Stadiums Shut Down, FanFood Shifts to Restaurant Curbside Pickup (and Drive-In Movies!)

Sports leagues and games large and small were among the first parts of everyday entertainment to be decimated by the COVID-19 outbreak. No sporting events (and no concerts!) means no one is going to arenas or stadiums. This is a problem for FanFood, a startup that enables food delivery directly to your seat from concession stands at large venues.

So FanFood is doing what scrappy companies do in times of crisis: it is pivoting. And like so many other software companies in the food tech space, FanFood is temporarily pivoting to help restaurants get food to customers now that dine-in is no longer an option in many cities and states.

FanFood launched a program this week to help restaurants do curbside delivery of orders. For the next 60 days, FanFood is waiving the set up and subscription fees for its service. Once onboarded on to FanFood’s software platform, restaurants can take orders and instead of delivery, they can rush food out to the curb where customers can pick it up.

For some restaurants, FanFood might be a more economical option as we learn more about some of the shady strings third-party delivery services are still attaching to restaurants during this downturn.

“We’re not like Grubhub,” Carson Goodale, CEO of FanFood told me by phone this week. “We don’t take commissions.”

Instead, FanFood splits the ten percent convenience fee added to each order 40/60 with the restaurant. So on a $20 order, the two dollars get split with 40 percent going to FanFood and 60 percent going to the restaurant. After the 60 day trial, there is a subscription fee to use the service, which is typically around $119/month.

Implementing curbside service could also help mitigate the spread of the virus because restaurants can use their existing staff to expedite food rather than having a steady stream of unknown delivery people from various services coming through the door.

While FanFood is being nimble in the face of a global pandemic, its ability to innovate might be outpaced by the severity of the virus’ spread. California just ordered all of its residents to shelter in place. Yes, they can go out for food, but with more restricted movement, Californians might just rely on delivery to get restaurant meals. Should these type of shelter in place orders expand across the country, there won’t be much need for curbside pickup.

But that hasn’t happened yet, and in the meantime, FanFood may have another ace up its sleeve: Drive-In Movie Theaters. Don’t laugh! With traditional movie theaters shutting for social distance reasons, drive-in theaters are experiencing a bit of a resurgence since everyone stays inside their car. With no end in sight for this crisis, who knows, perhaps drive-ins will become the new “stadiums” in which we experience sporting events.

When You Drink at Home (and You Will), Tip a Chattanooga Service Worker with Chatt.us

We are all for finding bright spots amidst all the dark news the COVID-19 virus is wreaking across the food industry. With a growing list of cities and states forcing restaurants and bars to cease in-person service, a lot of waiters, bussers, bartenders, dishwashers and more are being laid off.

While relief groups are being set up and one hopes that the federal government will do their job and provide assistance, we came across one novel solution that we had to share. The website chatt.us is now letting you tip a service worker via Venmo or the Cash app.

Chatt.us describes itself this way:

Help the Chattanooga Service Industry

Every time you have a drink at home during social distancing, consider tipping a local service industry worker through Venmo or Cash App. Refresh this page to get a new person to support.

Right now, service industry people are severely impacted by social distancing and quarantine. Lower amounts of patrons and restaurants closing will be tough on everyone. Every little bit helps.

So when you’re making that vodka soda after trying to teach your elementary school son or daughter about how to calculate perimeters and areas while also putting in a full day’s home of remote work, you can visit the site and offer up a tip as a literally random act of kindness.

Chatt.us didn’t have a whole lot of, well, any information about who created the site, but God bless ’em, whoever they are. Hopefully the site inspires people in more cities to do the same.

Bright spots, everyone. They light the way. We’ve been compiling a list of companies and services that are helping out the restaurant industry during this pandemic. If you know of interesting solutions (local or national) to help those in the food industry out, drop us a line and let us know!